English soprano Susanna
Fairbairn’s current and future engagements include PRIESTESS and GREEK WOMAN Iphygénie en Tauride, BICE Pia de’ Tolomei and cover DONNA ANNA Don Giovanni English Touring Opera, and
SOLOIST Beethoven Symphony No. 9,
Bruckner Te Deum, Mozart Requiem, Beethoven Ah! Perfido, Blake From the
Mattress Grave, as well as a recital at Wigmore Hall for Park Lane Group.
Recent roles include ELEONORA Il furioso all’isola di San Domingo and cover GISMONDA Ottone for English Touring Opera, MARGERY The Dragon of Wantley London Handel Festival, JUNO La Calisto Hampstead Garden Opera, DONNA ELVIRA Don Giovanni Co-Opera Co. and Opera Vera, and PAPAGENA Magic Flute Opera in Oborne. At Trinity College of Music, Susanna’s roles included ARMIDA Rinaldo, LADY BILLOWS Albert Herring, and COUNTESS Le nozze di Figaro and the title role in Massenet’s Cendrillon in Advanced Opera Scenes.
A keen explorer of contemporary music, Susanna is a former Park Lane Group Young Artist and made her Southbank debut in the 2013 January series at the Purcell Room. She has returned since to perform Judith Weir King Harald’s Saga and Messiaen Poèmes pour Mi alongside Jane Manning, and works by Joseph Horovitz and Robert Saxton. Susanna also created the role of AGRIPPINA in Effy and Litha Efthymiou’s new opera Fragments of Sun, premiered at the Tête à Tête Opera Festival 2012, and premiered their multi-disciplinary piece, Parting, at Kings Place.
Susanna’s extensive experience as a soloist on the concert platform includes Schumann Requiem für Mignon with The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Brahms Requiem St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Israel in Egypt Cadogan Hall, Messiah Wales Millennium Centre, St. John Passion, Birmingham Symphony Hall, Elijah York Minster, Mozart C Minor Mass Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh, Tavener The Veil of the Temple Canterbury Cathedral (in the composer’s presence), Vaughan Williams A Sea Symphony Nottingham Albert Hall, Poulenc Gloria, Dvořák Stabat Mater, and Finzi Dies Natalis. She has been featured several times on BBC Radio 3 and BBC 1, including on The One Show.
Susanna has performed world-wide with conductors John Eliot Gardiner, Laurence Cummings, Evelino Pidò, Nicholas Kraemer, Steuart Bedford, Sian Edwards and Jonathan Peter Kenny, and directors Adrian Noble, James Conway, Bill Bankes-Jones and Joe Austin. Susanna is also a keen recitalist, appearing UK-wide with her duo partner Matthew Schellhorn. The pair recently premiered a new song cycle written for them by Toby Young, and look forward to their Wigmore Hall debut next year.
Susanna won the Selma D and Leon Fishbach Prize at the 2014 London Handel Singing Competition and the Dvorak Society for Czech and Slovak Music Prize at the 2015 Emmy Destinn Competition and now enjoys studying with Raymond Connell. She originally trained as a flautist, winning an Instrumental Scholarship at Magdalen College, Oxford. Subsequently, she studied at the Wales International Academy of Voice with Dennis O’Neill and Nuccia Focile, and Trinity College of Music with Alison Wells. At Trinity she won the 2009 English Song Competition, the Paul Simm Opera Prize and Wilfred Greenhouse Allt Prize, was the recipient of a scholarship from the Linda Pilgrim Charitable Trust and TCM Trust, and won a Henry Wood House Bursary.